


Crystal Grace

by Enda



Series: Florae [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28437987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enda/pseuds/Enda
Summary: The Inquisitor confronts Solas before the final battle. After he is gone, she finds a message from him in the rotunda.(The conversation I wish they’d had.)Oneshot in a broader series, but can stand on its own.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Series: Florae [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080824
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	Crystal Grace

The ground trembles, and the wind from an unnatural storm wails in the distance. Halani’s hands shake as she changes into her armor and straps her daggers across her back. The others are heading to the stables, to ready their mounts to ride to the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

Halani races down to join them. The stables are empty when she arrives, save her mount and—Solas.He is leading his horse out, and freezes when he sees her.

She glances towards the gate, where their party is gathering. She can hear people shouting, giving orders, the sound of the strange storm keening in the distance.

But all of that falls away, and suddenly it is just the two of them, alone in the world.

“Solas.”

He is looking at the ground, and won’t meet her eyes. His manner has changed since that terrible day in Crestwood—a harder tone to his voice, a new recklessness in the way he fights, a darker strength to his magic. And each time their paths have crossed, he has gone out of his way to avoid her.

This is her only chance.

“We might not survive this battle,” Halani says. “So I have to know. Why did you even try? Why start something you never believed in in the first place?”

Solas still doesn’t look at her, and begins leading his mount to the gate. She feels sick—no, outraged—at the thought that he will walk away from her yet again.

But then he stops, his head bowed. And he turns to face her, his posture deflating, a weary line to his shoulders. Her heart aches at seeing his old self—the cautiousness she had so loved, the tenderness behind the reserve, the reserve that she now knows is pain.

“Before,” Solas says slowly, “the future was… Uncertain. There were many paths, and some of them we could have walked together. But the paths have converged, and now there is only one left before me. And you cannot follow me down it.”

Her heart lurches. “Solas. You’re not…”

He looks at her for a moment. “No,” he says, firmly. “I don’t intend to kill myself to defeat Corypheus.”

Halani doesn’t know why she believes him, but she does, and a small part of her eases in relief.

“Then what? What is so dire I can’t face it with you? What is more dire than what we’ve already faced together? _You can’t make that choice for me_.” She practically growls those last words.

“Unless,” she adds, because she can’t help but voice her deepest fear, the terrible raw center of her hurt, “you’re just too much of a coward to admit you don’t love me anymore.”

Solas drops the reins of his mount and takes a step towards her, and she fights the urge to step back. His eyes flick from her eyes to her mouth, his expression terribly intent, as if he is memorizing her face. She knows he must be seeing the half-washed away lines of her vallaslin in the shape of his hand. His left hand lifts, as if in memory. But he doesn’t touch her.

When he finally speaks, his voice is almost a whisper, and rough with emotion: “Of course I still love you.”

And at that, Halani finally begins to cry.

And she hates herself for it.

“Forgive an old elf”—the disconcerting words he’d used, so long ago, at his hut in Haven after they discussed Dalish legends—“for not learning from past mistakes. I have always been so selfish.”

With that, he turns from her and leads his horse to the gate. 

Halani, her entire body numb, eyes unseeing, goes into the stable and readies her mount to leave. She allows herself her tears for the length of five deep breaths.

Then she scrubs her face with her tunic, and gets on her horse to join the others.

Later, as they fight Corypheus, some detached part of her is grateful for the conversation. Solas gave her the gift of despair, and so she fought with all the ferocity of someone with nothing left.

* * *

But she has so many things left, she reminds herself, as Iron Bull sets another drink down in front of her and whacks her heartily in the back.

“Cheer up, Boss!”

She musters a smile, and raises the mug of ale in his direction.

He makes a disgusted noise at her unconvincing expression, and saunters back to his Chargers and their drinking game, something involving knives and a deck of cards.

Her smile becomes real as she looks around her at this scene around her, bright and warm and full of laughter, surreal after the dim chaos of the battlefield. Everyone around her, safe and sound, singing bawdy ballads, some openly weeping as they embrace for the hundredth time. She’d attempted to bathe, as had the others, but the blood and soot still stains their skin.

They are all exhausted, the bone-deep weariness after battle and a hard ride, but no one wants to sleep. How could they not drink to the full depth of their victory? A defiant celebration of life, after so much suffering.

And around her at the table, the faces of the people who have become so dear. Cassandra, who seemed so cold and intimidating at first, but who Halani now counts as one of her dearest friends. Varric, whose bravado can’t hide his integrity and generosity. Dorian, who always made her laugh even in the darkest of moments. Leliana, with her unshakeable faith, whom Halani had seen die for the Inquistion in another universe. Josephine, her grace and pleasantries belying a steely resolve. Cullen, so dependable and principled in the face of chaos, the bedrock of the Inquisition.

And… Solas. In the beginning, to Halani he was just an apostate mage, fascinating and mysterious, who lived his life in dreams. Now, after a year of knowing him, and loving him—how much has she really learned? He never shared his terrible secret, the one she had sensed from the beginning. Whatever it is, Halani knows with bone-deep certainty that this secret is why he left.

After the battle, when she looked behind her and saw Solas at the top of the stairs, and then glanced back and saw them empty—she already knew he was gone. It was the natural culmination of all of the ways he had left her so many times before.

And though she can’t help but look up every time the tavern door opens, she knows this instinct to look for him will eventually fade.

Halani is more than a jilted over. She doesn’t need Solas to feel whole. Somewhere deep down, she is overjoyed at the prospect of a future together with these people she loves so much, in this world where they’ve miraculously survived. She is proud of what she has accomplished and learned—who she has become as Inquisitor.

But as dawn approaches and everyone gets even drunker, including her, she sinks into her grief like a warm pool, letting the conversation ebb and flow around her. Joy will have to wait.

Halani follows with unsteady steps as the revelers drift to the great hall, still singing and shouting and laughing even as dawn light pales the windows. When she walks in, she can’t help but look at the door to the rotunda. She sees him so vividly at his desk, poring over his books and scrolls—how when she walked in, he would look up with the warm expression he seemed to only have for her…

Before she realizes it, she has pushed open the door, to the dark room that still smells like paint.

She fumbles to light the lamp on the wall. In the fresh light, she sees something on the table.

There’s something inside of her that’s been fracturing all night. When she sees it, it finally shatters, and she falls to her knees.

The desk has been cleared of his books, his quill, his scrawled notes.

It is empty save one thing: a single, pristine flower of crystal grace.

* * *

The shemlen have a story about it. The Maker, upon first seeing the suffering of the world He wrought, wept. Where His tears fell, crystal grace bloomed. It is a parable about the sorrow at the heart of the Maker’s grace, the Andrastean doctrine of radical forgiveness.

The Dalish have a similar story, though their name for the flower has nothing to do with grace, just as their pantheon does not.

After the fall of Arlathan, the first of the People perished in war with the shemlen. From the killing fields, the flower grew, endless swaths of lovely white bells rippling in the wind.

The People looked at what had flowered from their ruin and could only find one name for it: Emelas.

Regret. 

**Author's Note:**

> I love making up meanings/myths for flowers. The name came to my mind probably inspired by the short story by Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” I also love how the two stories illustrate the difference between the human and Dalish religions. From what I’ve gathered, there’s no concept of redemption in the story of their people, only suffering without meaning. I don’t actually know that much about Andrastean faith, so most of the anecdote above is pulled from similarities to Christianity I’ve noticed.


End file.
